1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the field of communication systems, and more particularly to improving the quality of fault detection and recovery methods of connectivity between a plurality of clients from a plurality of LANs and a networking device having a bank of processing nodes (units).
2. Description of Background Art
In systems of networking devices based on plurality of processoring units connected to one or more Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs), it is challenging to provide Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS) connection for more than 99.999% of the time while maintaining good separation between the different LANs to achieve security needs. A networking device can be a node in a network that communicates and services a plurality of users. An exemplary networking device can be a multipoint control unit (MCU), a firewall, a content server, a media server, etc.
In a common networking device, one or more Media Access Controls (MAC) addresses are associated with one processing unit as long as the system is up and running. A MAC address can refer to an Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA) or a hardware address. A MAC address is an identifier that is attached to most network adapters (i.e., network interface cards (NICs)) as the name of the adapter. In such a common architecture, if a processing node fails to operate or needs to be replaced, there is no way to support the functionality of the processor to a standby processoring unit without switching to another MAC. Using a redundant MAC/Processor pair results in high cost/utilization ratio. Furthermore, one MAC/Processor standby pair would be required for each LAN. A failure occurring on the MAC or somewhere along the physical path (PHY or cable) results in disconnecting the processor even though the processor is not in a permanent fault condition, and would otherwise be capable serving users from other LANs.
Thus, it is evident that current technologies of multi processors equipment create significant difficulties in reliable connectivity with external Ethernet LANs.